


So Large Against the Sky

by Minim Calibre (minim_calibre)



Category: Gifted (Movie 2017)
Genre: Cats, Developing Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Second Chances, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 23:01:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21842653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minim_calibre/pseuds/Minim%20Calibre
Summary: "Do you know anyone who wants a cat? Not Fred. Rest assured, Fred is still firmly ensconced in our home."There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then, finally, "You're calling me to ask if I know anyone who wants a cat?"
Relationships: Frank Adler/Bonnie Stevenson
Comments: 15
Kudos: 66
Collections: The Leonard Cohen Title Challenge (Any Freaking Song but "Hallelujah"), Yuletide 2019





	So Large Against the Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roga/gifts).



The fetid smell of the litter box wasn't going anywhere, even though Frank had cleaned it twice that day already and it wasn't even five o'clock yet.

Three cats, it seemed, were two cats too many for the box. And three cats, a small one-bedroom apartment, and an air conditioner in desperate need of repair was a recipe for disaster. He put the scoop back in the holder he'd made from a cut-up bleach bottle and duct tape and picked up the bag holding the fruits of his labor. Another smelly mess of cat shit and wet clay for the garbage can. At least the clumping litter had been on sale. He'd weighed that against the state of his bank account and bought three bags. He was already down to the last one.

"I still think you're doing it wrong. All the books say we should have one box per cat," Mary said. She was sitting on the couch with Fred, legs crossed, the hand not involved in petting her cat holding a book.

"As you keep telling me, and I get that, I do. But you know that we can barely fit one litter box in the apartment, right? Let alone three of them."

"I know."

The litter box wasn't the only problem. The other, far more pressing one was that Loui did not like Chili one bit and the feeling was mutual. It was only getting worse as they settled in. At least they both liked Fred, but then again, everyone except Evelyn liked Fred.

Either Loui or Chili would have to find a new home. No, he would have to find either Loui or Chili a new home, preferably one where the feline in question was unlikely to find itself back on death row, which ruled out Craigslist and flyers in the laundry room.

"I don't suppose you want a cat?" he asked Roberta the next morning after Mary'd gone to school. "I can't keep all three of them."

She raised her eyebrows and took a sip of her coffee. "You've seen my place, Frank. Does it look like I want a cat? And no, I don't know anyone else who wants one, either."

"Fair enough. I just wouldn't be doing my duty if I didn't ask you. And," he admitted, "I don't have anyone else to ask."

"Does Mary know about this?"

"Not yet. I'm going to talk to her about it when she gets home from school. I just made the decision last night."

"Well, maybe you'll get lucky and she'll know someone who wants a cat."

"I'm sure she does. Being cat crazy appears to be a prerequisite for friendship with Mary, but her classmates' parents look askance at me enough already as it is."

"Is Mary coming over tonight?" Roberta asked. She always asked now, not yet ready to assume their world was back to normal, even though it had only been those first couple of weeks when he'd been unwilling to let Mary out of his sight for the night, not even just to go to Roberta's.

"She's already picked out the movie she's going to foist on you."

"If you tell me it's Frozen again…"

"I tried to talk her out of it, I did. But you know Mary."

~

The house was quiet. The house was always quiet without Mary.

Frank had relished that, back when Mary was a toddler and Roberta had first started having her over for the night, back before Evelyn and everything after. Maybe he'd relish it again, given enough time, but he wasn't there yet. For a moment, he thought about going to Ferg's, having a beer or two, striking up a conversation with someone looking for a fun night with zero strings attached.

Given enough time, maybe he'd relish that again, too. Right now, though, the thought of going to Ferg's or anywhere was about as appealing as the thought of calling Evelyn. Instead, he started in on some of the non-litter box chores he'd been putting off. He dug out the toilet bowl cleaner and the Windex and pulled some rags from the bag in the closet. Bathroom first, then the kitchen. At least the litter box odor covered up any other smells in the apartment.

And if he was thinking that was a good thing, he was screwed if he couldn't find a new home for one of the cats.

Frank sighed and shut the bathroom door behind him. Through the door, he heard the low, feral growling that indicated Loui and Chili were at it again, then the crash and clatter of books and toys falling to the ground in their wake. He squirted the cleaner under the rim, its overpowering wintergreen fragrance a welcome relief from the omnipresent cat stench.

When he finished applying the cleaner, he went back out to the living room and grabbed Chili, unceremoniously dropping him into the bedroom and shutting the door, then went to pick up everything the cats had knocked down. They hadn't broken anything this time, at least, but they'd managed to pull his phone off the charger again.

He picked it up and scrolled through the contacts. Roberta, Evelyn, Mary's school, a couple of numbers related to work, Diane's number (which he still couldn't bring himself to delete), and Bonnie Stevenson. Not a lot of options there, not that he hadn't already known that all too well. In fact, as he'd already talked to Roberta about the cats, just the one. He put the phone back on the charger and went back to the bathroom to scrub several weeks' worth of soap scum off of the tub while he pondered the dearth of people in his life, a voice that sounded suspiciously like his mother's waspishly asking him if he'd ever expected anything else.

~

 _I could use your help with something._ It took Frank almost as long to thumb out the words on his phone as it had to come up with them, but he didn't think calling Bonnie out of the blue was the smartest move right now. She was friendly enough in a school setting, but…. He shook his head. Water under the bridge.

He wasn't expecting an answer right away, maybe not even at all, so it was a surprise to have his phone start buzzing with an incoming call from her less than a minute after he'd hit send.

"Is everything okay with Mary?" she said, concern evident in her voice.

"Mary's fine," he replied. "No, this is…actually, this is hard to explain over the phone."

"Well, you could try."

"Do you know anyone who wants a cat? Not Fred. Rest assured, Fred is still firmly ensconced in our home."

There was a long silence on the other end of the line. Then, finally, "You're calling me to ask if I know anyone who wants a cat?"

"I texted you. You called. And Roberta doesn't, Evelyn's allergic and would be the last person I'd call for just about anything, and especially not anything involving cats. You're one of the only other people in my phone's contacts, and it's important to me that the cat finds a good home."

"Okay. Wait." He could picture her shaking her head to clear it. "What cat are you talking about?"

"Whichever one draws the short straw."

"You're right. This is hard for you to explain over the phone." She sighed. "Do you want to meet somewhere?"

"You could come over here. It's Friday, so Mary's with Roberta. It won't take long, I promise."

~

Frank let Bonnie in, a wry smile on his face. "Try not to inhale too deeply," he said, so of course she did and, going by the wrinkling of her nose, regretted it immediately. "I'd say you get used to it," he added, "but I'd be lying. Which is why I texted you."

"Because of the cat smell?"

"Not just that, though that's part of it." They made their way to the kitchen. "Did Mary tell you about Loui and Chili?"

Bonnie shook her head.

"When you texted me that picture of Fred and I went to bring him home, he was scheduled to be euthanized—don't tell Mary, she doesn't know that part—and so were Loui and Chili."

"And you couldn't leave them."

"And I couldn't leave them. Coffee?" He poured himself a cup.

"No, no thank you."

"I couldn't leave them, but I can't keep both of them, I can't, not even if I could find a way to fit another litter box in the apartment. Not to put too fine a point on it, they hate each other."

"And so you called me."

"Texted. I don't usually, but it felt somehow less intrusive than calling."

"And so you texted me."

"Right."

"I don't think I can fix your cat problem." She sounded apologetic but looked amused. "Have you considered asking on Facebook?"

"I'm not on Facebook. Or any social media." He had been, before Diane, before Mary. He'd deleted his accounts and his blog and left that part of his life behind along with everything else after. "And no, I'm not going to put an ad on Craigslist."

She smiled and said, "Of course not. That would be a terrible idea. However, unlike you, I am on Facebook and could ask around." She pulled out her phone. "I could even post their pictures. Do you want to rehome both of them?"

"No, just one. Fred seems to like the company. According to Mary, that is. She also said he'll be a little sad to see whoever goes go, but that it will be nice for him to only have to share his litter box and ping pong balls with one other cat."

Loui got the honor of the first photoshoot by dint of being closest. She yawned as Bonnie took her picture and went back to cleaning herself. "You'll have to come into the bedroom to get Chili's mugshot," he said apologetically. "They got into it again just before I texted. If I didn't have Chili locked in my bedroom, they'd still be fighting."

Of the two cats, Chili was definitely the skittish one. It took Frank a few minutes to coax him out from under the bed where he'd gone to ground. Coaxing was maybe the wrong word. Frank had to pull him out. The cat squirmed and twisted in his arms, ears back. "Can you shut the door? Then I can set him down. Hopefully, he won't run."

He heard the click as the latch engaged, then Bonnie was kneeling next to him, her eyes wide and fixed on the cat he'd just set on the bed. "Hey there, Chili," she said. She reached her hand out, stopping just shy of his face. Chili brought his nose forward for an experimental sniff.

"I think he likes you," Frank said, surprised. In the time the cat had been here, the only person Chili seemed to have really warmed to was Frank himself.

"I like him, too." She stared at the cat, considering, as Chili continued to sniff her hand, finally butting his cheek up against it. Bonnie scratched him behind the ears and said, "You know what? I could probably take him off your hands. My building allows pets if I pay a deposit, but I'll have to talk to the manager before I can bring him home."

"Love at first sight."

"I wasn't planning on taking your extra cat when I came over."

"I wasn't planning on asking. I can help with the deposit, though, and I'm sure Fred can spare a couple of ping pong balls. How long do you need?"

"I'll get back to you on that."

They left Chili where he was and went back to the living room.

"If you don't want coffee, I could offer you a beer. It seems rude to call you over here and not offer you something."

"I'm good, but thank you. I should probably go."

"Right. Friday. I wouldn't want to interrupt your plans."

"They're just lesson plans. What about yours? I thought you'd be out at Ferg's."

"Not for a while. I fell out of the habit after everything. I guess I figured if I wanted to sit around and be miserable, it was cheaper and easier to do it at home by myself."

Bonnie frowned. "Didn't everything here remind you of Mary?"

"Yes."

"Oh." She put too much understanding for comfort in just that single syllable. Hesitantly, she said, "What about now? How are you doing? I feel bad I didn't ask earlier."

"I'm fine and why would you have? It's not exactly a topic for parent-teacher conferences." And he hadn't exactly stayed in touch when Mary'd been in Tampa.

She sat down on the couch, dropping her purse. Sounding almost guilty, she asked, "Can I change my mind about the beer?"

"Sure."

"Good."

~

"I know it wasn't my fault that Davis contacted your mother, but sometimes I still feel like I could have done more or said more or helped more." Bonnie picked at the edge of the label on her now-empty bottle.

"You were a lot of help during the custody battle." They'd spent a considerable amount of time together while he and Evelyn had been wrangling for custody, much of it just talking. It surprised him how easy it was for them to fall back into the rhythm of it despite everything.

"But not after."

He thought of the calls he'd ignored the first painful weeks, the voicemails she'd left that he'd deleted without listening to. "You tried, you did. But you can't help someone who's not willing to accept it, you can't."

"When Mary came back, she was so quiet at first. Like she was afraid if she did anything wrong—"

"Someone would take her away again. Believe me, I know."

They sat quietly for a while, Fred lounging lazily beside them, his single eye at half-mast, his tail occasionally twitching, and Loui parked in her usual location at Frank's feet, looking up expectantly, as if treats would magically appear if she just stared at him long enough.

"I'm not supposed to have favorites," Bonnie said, "but if I did hypothetically have favorites, Mary would be one of them. I'm glad she's back. How are her math classes coming?"

"Good. She's enjoying them and only showing off occasionally."

"And you…you're really okay?" she asked uncertainly.

It would have been easy for him to elide and simply say yes. Easier for him and no doubt easier for Bonnie and the unnecessary burden the events with Evelyn appeared to have placed on her conscience, but something in him just wanted to be honest. "I am, for the most part, most of the time. I still wake up in a cold sweat a few times a week and go out to the living room, just to make sure she's still here and I still have nightmares where I wake up and she's gone, but she's here and she's happy, and if Mary's happy, I'm happy."

~*~

"Frank?"

"Mary."

"Is it wrong that I'm glad Miss Stevenson is taking Chili, not Loui? I didn't want to have to choose, but I like Loui best. She likes ping pong balls almost as much as Fred and doesn't hide under the bed when she hears a noise. Plus she's black and white. Like a piano."

"They call that a tuxedo pattern, you know."

"I know." She gave a little shrug. "But I like pianos better than tuxedos. Hey, Frank?"

"Before you ask, the answer is no, I'm still not buying you a piano." Lessons, maybe, in a year or so, assuming he could find her a decent enough keyboard and she was still interested. He might even remember enough from the decade and a half he'd spent dutifully practicing at Evelyn's behest to give Mary some basic ones himself. "And to answer your other question, no, it's not wrong to be happy. Besides, Chili's going to a good home."

"I like Miss Stevenson. She lets me do my real math when I'm done with my reading."

It was Tuesday and Bonnie would be picking up Chili on Saturday, apartment manager alerted, pet deposit paid. And as if they knew their time together was limited, Chili and Loui's fights were now to the point where Frank was keeping Chili isolated in the bedroom as much as possible, Loui lurking right outside the bedroom door, waiting for her chance to attack whenever Frank let Chili out for food and litter box breaks.

He couldn't say he was going to miss it.

"I still don't like cats," he told Chili that night as he shooed him off the pillow so he could go to bed. Chili looked up at him affronted, his tail twitching. "At least not binocular ones. Fred's an exception. You and Loui are only here because I couldn't in good conscience leave you behind."

The moment Frank's head hit the pillow, Chili jumped back up beside it, his twitching tail swatting Frank in the nose. Frank sighed and half-heartedly pushed him away, giving Chili a scratch behind the ears. "Fine," he said, "I don't dislike you, but I'll be glad when you're in your new home and I have my bed to myself again."

Chili settled in next to him, purring and kneading the pillow.

~

"Do you have all his things ready?" Frank asked Mary on the morning Bonnie was scheduled to pick up the cat.

Mary examined the basket she'd put together. "Three ping pong balls, one, no, two of those squishy foil ball things he likes to chase, some catnip, umm…" She frowned. "I forgot the cat treats."

"I'll get some down from the refrigerator."

"Can you put them in a sandwich bag, too?"

"If you'd like."

"Frank? Can I go talk to him?" Chili was still locked away in Frank's room.

"Just don't get into anything while you're in there, okay?"

She hopped off the kitchen chair. "Okay."

He'd tidied up the apartment as best he could, but it was still a disaster by any reasonable measure. Not that it mattered—it wasn't as if Bonnie hadn't already seen it in its usual state of disarray. Still, he went back and picked up the more visible stacks of books and set them out of the way.

"He's ready," Mary announced. "I asked."

"That's good. Can you put a few of your toys away? And make your bed."

"Why? I'm just going to get back into it tonight."

"Because it makes the house look better."

"You didn't make your bed," she pointed out.

"No one can see my bed, so it's not hypocrisy, if that's what you were about to accuse me of."

"It's just Miss Stevenson."

"Make your bed."

Mary sighed. "Fine. But you're still being weird." Hearing the knock on the front door, she looked out the window and asked, "Miss Stevenson's here. Do I still have to make it?"

"No." He picked up the carrier. "Answer the door while I get Chili."

When he came back, a growling Chili finally in the carrier, Bonnie was sitting on the couch, the basket of cat things beside her, Mary next to that. They were deep in conversation.

"Sorry," he said, setting down the carrier. "Chili didn't want to get in and it took me a while to convince him."

"He doesn't sound convinced," Mary said.

"I have his vaccination records in the kitchen," he told Bonnie. "I'll get them for you. Do you need help carrying him to the car?"

"I think I can handle a cat carrier."

"How much do I owe you for the pet deposit?"

"Nothing. I mean, you paid his adoption fee." Just then, Loui came over from wherever she'd been lurking and poked her nose at the carrier. Bonnie looked at the cats, eyebrows raised. "I should probably get going before things escalate."

"Thanks again for taking him."

"You're welcome, but you know what? I'm selfishly very glad to be doing it. I've missed having one."

~*~

"How's the cat?" Frank asked Bonnie as he stood there balancing an unwieldy art project on his forearms while he waited for Mary to get her backpack out of her cubby. Bonnie had had Chili for three weeks now.

"He's doing well, thank you for asking. Ella, babe, don't forget your books!" She turned her attention back to Frank. "One of the third-grade teachers says I can have her old cat tree for him if I can haul it away, but it won't fit in my Hyundai."

"You could borrow my truck."

She shook her head. "Oh, no. I couldn't drive a truck."

"I could also help you pick it up. Just let me know when would be a good time."

"Are you sure?"

"You took Chili. It's the least I can do."

~

Saturday morning, while Mary was still at Roberta's, Frank got up, made coffee, and read his dogeared copy of _Man's Search for Meaning_ while he waited for Bonnie to call. He wasn't very many pages in when his phone buzzed, Bonnie's number on the caller ID.

"She says she'll be around if I want to pick it up around eleven."

"What's your address?" he asked, making a mental note to let Roberta know Mary might be staying a little later than usual, just in case.

He jotted her address down as she read it out and said, "I can be there by ten-thirty."

"If you come closer to ten, I can buy you coffee," she said.

And though he'd already had two cups and had brewed a full pot, he agreed.

~

Bonnie's apartment building was somewhere between new and old, the kind of place that had been higher end at the start and had settled into a life of faded glory and ever-cheaper rents as time went on. She answered her door in a worn Red Hot Chili Peppers t-shirt and faded cutoffs, her feet bare on the terra cotta floor.

"Come on in, I have to get my shoes," she said. "Close the door before Chili makes a break for it."

Her place was tidy except for the glass-top table in the dining nook, which was covered in papers and notebooks. Frank nodded towards it. "Your grading station?"

"How did you guess?"

"You should have seen my desk when I was teaching."

"I've seen your house."

"Believe me, my desk was worse. Not as many toys, but about twice as many books and empty coffee cups per square inch. You were getting your shoes?"

"I was. Go ahead and have a seat. I'll be right back. I had to put them on the top shelf of my closet after Chili mistook them for his bathroom." She hurried off down the short hall.

The white walls of her apartment were broken up by framed landscape photographs in stark black and white. The top two shelves of the nearest bookshelf held mostly photography books, texts on technique instead of coffee table fare. "Did you take those?" he asked when she came back, shoes in hand.

"Most of them." Bonnie sat down and slipped her feet into a pair of Converse as worn as her t-shirt. She looked more like a college student on her way to a kegger than an elementary school teacher.

"They're good."

She smiled. "Thank you."

"They're not what I would have expected."

"And what would you have expected?"

"Something bright and colorful. Less bleak."

Pokerfaced, she said, "I will have you remember that I am a very serious person."

"Very serious," he agreed.

Bonnie stood and grabbed her purse. "I promised you coffee. Shall we?"

~

"This is where I do my grading and lesson plans when I can't handle doing them at home," she said as he parked outside of a small and vaguely hip coffee shop. He'd done his fair share of grading in coffee shops, studying too.

It was just as vaguely hip inside, a chalkboard menu of expensive espresso drinks behind the counter and a pastry case of gourmet goods. The girl behind the counter had peacock blue hair, an eyebrow piercing, and a friendly smile. Her name tag read Helen. "Your usual?" she asked Bonnie.

"And whatever he's having."

"Just drip for me."

Bonnie looked at him. "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"And one drip coffee, both to go," she said to Helen. To Frank, she said, "Can I get you a pastry? Anything?"

"I had breakfast before I came over."

It was good coffee, the kind he'd taken for granted in Boston before he'd become the kind of guy who bought whatever brand he could find on sale, cost and caffeine content more important factors than flavor.

"So where is this cat tree?"

Bonnie checked her phone. "Uptown on 9th. Thank you again for doing this."

~*~

The phone buzzed. Frank wiped his hands off on a rag and picked it up. He had another text from Bonnie. Since he'd helped her get the cat tree, they'd been talking once or twice a week, usually about the cat, sometimes about Mary, sometimes other, less important things. This time, she was texting with a request.

_Can I borrow your truck again today? And you?_

He called her. "When?"

"One or so? Meet at my place."

He'd be finished with the repair job he was working on long before then and Mary was spending the last Friday of spring break at the beach with her friend Mia and family and was staying there for dinner. "Sure."

~

When he got to her place, she met him at the door, a smudge of dirt across her nose. "Thank you," she said.

"You didn't tell me what you needed the truck for. And me."

"I ordered a new dresser and the person who was supposed to pick up my old one texted this morning to tell me they were no longer interested and I need it gone before the new one arrives, which it is supposed to do in approximately two hours."

He followed her back to her room, which was less tidy and more colorful than the rest of the apartment, the photos on the walls here luridly bright images of flora and fauna, the apartment-issue white window blinds mostly hidden behind multicolored drapes. The matching bedspread on the double bed was almost obscured by pile after pile of folded clothing.

The dresser itself was small and solid, dark carved antique wood that looked more New England than Central Florida.

"Where am I taking it?"

"Goodwill? Unless you have a use for it. I've had it since high school, but it doesn't hold a lot of clothing and I got sick of piling the things that didn't fit inside on top, especially with a cat who is convinced that any clothing I leave out is a bed."

"Mary would love it. I don't know where we'd put it, but she would love it."

"It has a mirror," she said, going over to the closet and sliding open the door. She bent down, moving aside boxes that looked to be filled with framed photo after framed photo and then carefully removing the mirror she'd stashed behind them. "Let me lock Chili in the bathroom and then we can carry it out."

It probably would have been just as easy for him to do it himself, but they made their way out the door and to the truck with only a few missteps. He strapped the dresser in while Bonnie went back for the mirror, which he buckled into the passenger seat.

"Can I pay you back in coffee again tomorrow morning?" she asked as he got into the truck.

"You gave me a dresser. Not that I meant to take your furniture when I came over."

"I took your cat, you took my furniture. But I'm still buying you coffee."

"We're even, so why don't we just meet for it? I can buy my own."

~

Bonnie showed up in a pink floral summer dress with her hair up in a loose twist, the few dark curls that had escaped tucked behind her ears. She smiled when she saw him, wide and bright.

"Sorry I'm late," she said, a little out of breath as she sat down across from him. "I was trying to finish up some end-of-the-quarter paperwork."

"You're not. I was early."

She looked at her phone, eyebrows flying up in surprise. "Oh. Okay, no, that's good. I'm glad I didn't keep you waiting."

"Mary ended up having a sleepover with one of her Girl Scout friends and I finished all the pressing chores before ten, so I came here rather than trying to find more of them," he explained. "How's Chili?"

"He now lets me pet him without him being the one to start things first most of the time. And it's been six days since he had an accident near my shoes while I was at work."

"What about elsewhere?"

"It's just my shoes he seems to have something against. Should we get…" she motioned at the counter.

"Coffee? Yes. Though technically, I already have a cup. You should, though."

"Right. Sorry. I should have known that the large ceramic mug on the table next to you meant that you did, in fact, already have coffee."

"You never know. It could have been tea."

"Didn't you once say you didn't like tea and that it reminded you of your mother?"

"Both of those things are true," he replied. "I'm surprised you remembered."

Pushing her chair away from the table, Bonnie said, "I'm going to go get that coffee now."

Frank sipped slowly at his now-lukewarm coffee while he watched her order, her face friendly and animated as she talked to the young barista, a different one from the last time they'd been here. Whatever she'd ordered was iced; she left the counter with her hands wrapped around a giant plastic cup filled with something dark red.

"That doesn't look like coffee."

"I know. It's some sort of iced herbal tea they've started serving. We were talking about tea and I saw it on the menu and it looked like it might be refreshing."

"And is it?"

She took a cautious sip. "Yes."

"So what are you up to this weekend?" he asked.

She gave him a sheepish smile and confessed, "Actually, I have a date tonight."

"Really?"

His surprise must have shown in his face, because Bonnie said in mock indignation, "Is that so impossible to believe?"

"On the contrary, it's very, very possible. I hope you have a good time."

"Thank you. So do I." She swirled her straw in the small amount of ice and liquid that remained in her cup. "I haven't met him. One of my friends set us up on a blind date. I think they used to work together, or maybe they still work together. It's unclear." She wrinkled her nose. "What do you do on a blind date?"

"Honestly? It's been so long, I couldn't tell you."

"So where did you put the dresser?"

"It's in the middle of the living room while I try to figure out what I can move around or get rid of to make it fit. Mary loves it though, so I'm committed to figuring out the geometry."

"I have made it fit in some very unlikely spaces, including my first studio apartment and the very, very small bedroom I rented while I was getting my masters."

"I've been thinking about rearranging Mary's sleeping area anyway. I can't give her a bedroom without giving up my own, but I can give her a little more privacy." Her bed would fit by the front door and he could move his workbench and bookshelf to where her bed was now, get some screens or hang some curtains from the ceiling to surround the space. That still didn't leave a good place for the new dresser, unless it would fit at the foot of the bed. It might. "I need to take some measurements."

~

"It looks like something exploded in here," Mary said, standing there with her arms crossed, decidedly not helping while Frank hauled armload after armload of board games and books to the couch. His original idea from a week before had almost worked, though his bookshelf was now destined for his already over-crowded bedroom and there was no place to put the dresser that wouldn't block a window.

"And fixing that will go a lot faster if you help." Frank set another armload of boardgames down on the couch. "Start sorting through these and decide which ones you think we'll play again and which ones you've grown out of."

"I was happy with my bed where it was," she groused.

"This will give you a much-needed space of your own," he replied. "You'll like it. Trust me."

"Whatever," she muttered, but went and started dutifully sorting the games into two piles.

It took them the better part of the weekend. When they were done, Mary stood with a rapt expression as she looked at her newly-created corner of the apartment, the bed tucked away behind the screens he'd assembled from PVC pipe and old sheets, the dresser and mirror where the pile of games had been, her various stuffed animals arranged on top.

"Cool," she breathed.

Frank smiled at her. "Like it?"

The smile she gave him in return was wide and brilliant, overwhelming. "Love it."

"Good," he said. "I was a little worried you'd make me move everything back the way it was."

"No, you weren't," said Mary.

"No," he agreed. "I wasn't. I knew you'd like it."

~

_How's the dresser?_

Frank hit call. "Blocking a window, but otherwise working out," he said when Bonnie picked up. "How was the date?"

On the other end of the line, Bonnie groaned. "I don't want to talk about it."

"That good or that bad?"

"It was that I don't want to talk about it."

"That bad, then."

"Humiliating," she agreed. "And I am never doing that again, I would, in fact, rather die single and surrounded by cats that eat my corpse than do that again. So you got everything rearranged?"

"I did. Mary's bed is now by the front door and we put up some screens for privacy. She has her own space for the first time in her life. It's not perfect, but it buys us a few more years in the apartment before I have to find something with a second bedroom and a steadier job to afford said second bedroom." And he would have to do that, eventually. Probably sooner than he'd like. What worked at seven wouldn't work at seventeen, or even at ten or eleven.

"I'm glad it found a good home. I also found the key to the top drawer when I was cleaning this morning. Do you want me to give it to Mary when school starts Tuesday?"

"Sure. Or, if you're not doing anything, you could come by and see the setup. We had to do a lot of purging to make everything fit and I found some supplies from when I was homeschooling Mary that you might like for the classroom."

Bonnie was silent for a moment, then said, "Okay."

~

"These will come in handy," Bonnie said as she looked through the boxes he'd filled with books and construction paper, markers and modeling clay. "Are you sure you won't need them?"

"Mary wasn't using them even before I stopped homeschooling. I should have given them away ages ago."

"For the sake of my classroom budget, I am glad you didn't." She tilted her head in the direction of the entryway, where Mary was ensconced on her bed with her laptop and Fred, the dresser key now on a ribbon around her neck. "It looks good."

"Thanks. Let me help you get these to your car."

Mary waved at them as walked out. "Bye, Miss Stevenson."

"Bye, Mary. I'll see you Tuesday."

As soon as he'd shut the door behind them, Bonnie said, "I left between the appetizers and the entrees. I did not pass go, I did not collect two-hundred dollars, I did not wait for them to box up my order."

"I've had my fair share of bad dates, but never bad enough for anyone to leave mid-date. What happened?"

She popped the trunk and stepped aside so he could put the boxes in it. "The short version is that he showed up already halfway to drunk, proceeded to have another two cocktails, and hit on our waitress while telling me how pretty I could be if I started taking care of myself and how much I reminded him of his ex-wife. Cynthia was mortified when I told her."

"Wow. That's the short version? Who's Cynthia?"

"Sorry. The friend who set us up and who is never allowed to set me up on another date ever again. If you want to hear all the gory details and you're not doing anything, I will buy you a drink and whine at you about it Friday."

He laughed. "I can't wait."

~

Bonnie chose the location, a small place close to her apartment. A step and a half up from a dive bar, it had cheap beer and cheap food and a comfortable back patio where they could sit and talk out of the way of the blare of the jukebox and the cacophony of Friday night conversation.

"And he just kept giving me these weird looks while we were waiting for our table. I thought maybe it was something about my dress, or maybe the way I was wearing my hair," she was saying. "Maybe I had something on my face? But no. He told me as we were opening our menus that he could recommend a trainer at his gym." She picked up a french fry and stabbed it into the ketchup. "So then I thought, well, Cynthia said he likes to work out and maybe he's just bad at small talk."

"At what point did it become obvious that he was just a dick?"

"Well, after we'd ordered and after he'd aggressively flirted with our waitress while asking for cocktail recommendations, he told me that at my age, going to the gym is one of the most important things I should be doing and also had I ever considered straightening my hair?"

"When did he bring up the ex-wife?"

"When I told him to please leave the waitress alone and that I like my hair as it is. I am apparently overly-sensitive just like she was and that will doom a relationship."

"Wow. What does this guy do?"

"This is the best part: he's a life coach. Actually, no, the best part is the part that I swear did not know when I saw you Sunday: he sent Cynthia a long email detailing all the ways in which I was a failure as a date and a woman and letting her know she could improve her life by cutting out unhealthy friendships with toxic people. So she told him to lose her number and her email address and never speak to her again."

"Serves him right."

"It really does." She raised her bottle and they clinked their beers together. "But I'm still not going to let Cynthia set me up with anyone again."

Something that had been at the back of his mind had surfaced again during her rundown of the date. It wasn't something he was sure how to ask, but it was something he wanted to ask. No, needed to ask.

"We've been hanging out a lot lately," he began.

Bonnie raised her eyebrows. "Yes?"

"You've seen me at my worst. After Mary went to Tampa," he said. "I'm not proud of that, but you and I both know it's true."

"There were extenuating circumstances." Bonnie paused, stretching her legs out in front of her and taking a sip of her beer, her eyebrows raised. "But yes, yes I did. Go on."

"Why?"

She cocked her head. "Why what?"

"I know why Roberta puts up with me, other than getting to spend time with Mary. Why do you?"

"Because I like talking to you. You're smart and funny and the kind of person who would save two cats from death row, even though you claim you don't like cats. And you're also the only person I know with a truck, so obviously, I have an ulterior motive."

Frank grinned at her. "Obviously."

Bonnie looked at him, quietly nursing her beer. "I have something to confess," she said, finally.

"What's that?"

"I found your dissertation."

Surprised, he asked, "When?"

"After I found out that you had been a professor. I searched for your name and philosophy and found it."

"Did you read it?"

"No."

"Well, good." Though he had been, and still was, proud of it. "I'd only recommend it to cure insomnia."

"I started to," she admitted, "but it felt wrong somehow. Like I was spying on you or something. So I just wanted to let you know that I found it and that I have a copy of it on my hard drive."

"You're welcome to read it, I don't mind. Out of curiosity, what else did you find?"

"Not a lot. I found some reviews of you as a professor, your name on some other papers, and links going to a deleted blog."

"My magniloquent musings on meaning, as Evelyn put it," he said. "If the dissertation didn't put someone to sleep, my blog would have."

"I used to have a photography blog, but I took it down before I started teaching. Some of the photos from my college portfolio involved very artistic and tasteful nudity," she said. "None of it mine," she added hastily. "I was always the one behind the camera."

"Always?"

She smiled and admitted, "Almost always."

~*~

The idea had hit him maybe a week or two after he got Mary back. They'd been at the beach, Mary with her bucket and shovel, him in the folding chair watching her play, when he'd had the thought, _"We should go camping."_ Not that Mary had ever been camping, not that Frank had been camping more than twice, once in college and once when Dad had decided that they all needed fewer books and more time in nature and had tried enacting his Walden fantasies with his family in tow.

It had ended poorly to no one's surprise but his own, Evelyn and Diane staying behind while Frank spent three days freezing his ass off in a leaky tent in the woods, Dad alternating between listlessness and episodes of furious, bitter rage where he railed about his marriage, his children, his students, his colleagues, everything. 

Those memories alone had been enough for Frank to shove the idea back for another month or so until he'd woken up alone on a Saturday morning, the house too quiet with Mary at Roberta's, the whole place smelling because of the cats, and the thought of going somewhere else for a while and taking Mary with him sounded like the best one he'd had in a very long time.

Timing and a little luck meant he'd been able to book a waterfront site for seven months out, two weeks after school let out for the summer. Enough time for him to sell Mary on the idea and scour Craigslist for a good-enough tent along with a couple of sleeping bags and air mattresses. At least, he thought he'd sold Mary on the idea.

"Do we have to go camping?" Mary said, looking up from her plate of spaghetti the week before they were supposed to leave.

"You'll love it," he replied. "And yes, we do. We've talked about this."

"I know, but that was months ago, and we can't bring Fred or Loui. We could just go to the beach. Then they wouldn't be lonely, and they could come with us."

"Camping's different than going to the beach. And Fred and Loui will be fine."

"Fred would, maybe, but Loui's only had a home since last year. What if she thinks we're abandoning her?"

"Loui's not much of a thinker and it's just two nights. All we need to do is set out the feeders and plenty of water and clean the litter box before we leave. And hey, we can ask Roberta to check in on them."

~

"Mary asked if I could check on the cats next week. You know I would love to, Frank, but you had to go and choose the one week I'm not going to be around," Roberta finished sorting and started loading her laundry in the machine. "Michelle called this morning. They're going to induce her on Tuesday. I'm going up there to help out."

"I know, Mary said. To be fair, I scheduled our camping trip seven months ago, before your goddaughter announced she was having a baby. Boy or girl, do they know?"

"Camera shy's all they know. Pass me some of that detergent, will you?"

He handed her the bottle that she'd bought and he was borrowing. "When do you leave?"

"Monday morning."

"Need a ride to the airport?"

"If you don't mind."

~

"I still think someone needs to look after them," Mary said as they shopped for groceries for the trip. "You could ask Miss Stevenson. She took Chili, after all."

Hot dogs were on sale, so he grabbed two packs and put them in with the buns and marshmallows and chocolate and graham crackers. "Which means she already has a cat to look after."

Mary got that look on her face, the one that was somewhere between sullen and pleading, and said a little too waspishly for someone her age, "You could still ask. You two hang out all the time."

"Fine, I'll ask. Go get the relish."

"Can we get root beer, too?"

"It'll rot your teeth."

"So will s'mores and not if I brush them."

"I'll consider it."

With strategically wide eyes, she looked up at him and said, "Please?"

They ended up with a case of store-brand root beer and a half-gallon of vanilla ice cream for root beer floats when they got home, the latter his idea, not hers. "Remember," he said, "this is a treat. I'm still not buying you soda to have around the house and no, I don't care if anyone else's parent does it."

She rolled her eyes. "I know."

~

"Hey you," Bonnie said when she answered the phone. "What's up?"

"Mary would like to know if you can check in on the cats while we're camping this week."

He heard her bustling around and Chili's plaintive "I'm starving" meows in the background. "How long are you gone for and why are you camping in June in Florida?"

"Just two nights. We leave Wednesday and get back Friday and it's when I could find a spot and fit it into Mary's schedule."

"I didn't know you camped."

"We don't. This is our first time and Mary seems to think Loui will feel like we've abandoned her." Loui, hearing her name, jumped up on his lap and he idly scratched her under the chin.

"Not Fred?"

"She informs me that Fred's smart enough to know we'll always come back for him and as long as she brings him back a souvenir, he'll be happy."

"Mary's wise." She laughed a little and said, "Sure, I can check in on them."

"We need to pick up ice for the cooler Wednesday morning. I could drop off the keys on the way."

"It's not really on your way," she pointed out. "But if you do, you and Mary can say hi to Chili."

~

"Going to Miss Stevenson's house is weird," Mary declared. "Students shouldn't know where teachers live."

"She's not your teacher anymore and knows where you live," he replied, regretting it when Mary looked at him, eyebrows raised, letting him know she had not forgotten why and how it was that Miss Stevenson knew that.

"That's your fault," she said.

Bonnie opened the door, Chili safely contained in her other arm. "He always wants to escape and go after the birds," she said, letting them in. She closed the door and set the cat down.

"Fred thinks he wants to do that, too. But he just likes to look at them," said Mary. "I brought Chili some ping pong balls."

"Why don't you go ahead and give those to him, babe?" Bonnie told her.

Frank pulled the spare set of keys from his pocket and handed them over. "Thank you so much for doing this, Bonnie."

"It's no problem."

"I set up a feeder and set out an extra water bowl, so all they'll need is a little bit of company."

"Someone to throw them their ping pong balls," she said, looking fondly at Mary and Chili.

"Exactly. And we're close by, so you can call if there's an emergency."

~

Morning thunderstorms gave way to cloudy skies as Frank and Mary headed into the campground.

"I don't understand why you decided we should go camping in June. You know it's always cloudy in June. And it's wet. It's the rainy season."

"Because I was able to get us sites and cloudy and wet can be just as beautiful as sunny and dry."

"If I don't like it, can we go home?"

"You'll like it. Trust me."

"You always say that."

Wet as it was, there were still people driving golf carts on the main road in, kids on bikes weaving their way around the paths, and couples strolling with their dogs. He pointed to his left. "There's the playground."

"Great."

"Hey, enough with the sarcasm. We're camping."

Her response was a deep and theatrical sigh.

~

"What if it starts raining again?"

"It's June, so it will, but I waterproofed the tent. Twice. And you're not made of sugar, you won't melt. Now come help me put it up."

Mary handed him the poles and, once it was up, helped him hammer in the stakes. "Are you sure it won't leak?"

"I can't be sure, I can only be reasonably certain, which I am. Why don't you take a look around while I set everything else up? And stay where I can see you."

He stashed the cooler under the green picnic table, making a note to put it in the truck at night when he noticed an inquisitive and well-fed raccoon poking its head out from the gnarled ring of trees that surrounded the site and watching him with beady, avaricious eyes. Mary was exploring the trees on the other side of the site, occasionally tugging on branches to see if they'd be good to climb.

"I see a lizard," she said. "Can we have hot dogs soon?"

"Once I have the fire ring set up."

Mary went back to exploring while he finished setting up the site, dragging out the folding chairs and putting up the canopy so they could sit and watch the sunsets and the fish jumping out of water even if it rained.

"Did my mom ever go camping?" Mary asked, plopping down in one of the chairs as soon as he'd unfolded it.

"Not that I know of," he replied, unfolding the second chair and sitting down next to her.

"Would she have liked it if she did?"

"I don't know. I like to think she would have." He thought of Diane at Mary's age, already constantly studying, the closet things she had to friends a bunch of mathematicians at least five times her age. Out in the water, a heron waded on its stilt-like legs, its grey-blue body matching the sky. "But I know she'd have liked it that you were camping."

"What about you? Did you go camping when you were my age?"

A lie of omission was still a lie, but he didn't think he'd ever want to discuss that trip with Mary and certainly not now. "I went camping with a girlfriend my senior year of college."

"Roberta says you're not the type of person who has girlfriends. I told her you should have one and she told me not to hold my breath."

"I was younger then and didn't have you to look after."

Mary frowned, worry starting to fill her eyes. "Is that the reason you don't want a girlfriend?"

Frank picked a stray leaf out of her hair. "No, and you and Roberta should stop talking about my personal life. And I never said I didn't want one, that was Roberta. I reserve the right to want one someday. Let's get the fire started and we can roast some hot dogs."

"Do I get to have root beer with them?"

"You can have root beer at dinner. There's apple juice in the cooler. If you're thirsty, grab one of those."

The clouds eased up some as the day went on, though they never went entirely away. At the playground, Mary struck up a conversation with a couple of kids who turned out to be staying a few campsites away.

"How old is your daughter?" asked their mother, a woman of about his age, her round, friendly face slightly sunburnt across the cheeks and the nose despite the sun hat that covered her frosted blonde hair.

"Mary? She'll be eight in July. Yours?"

"Ethan's eight and a half and Olivia's seven. Where are you from?"

"Here. You?"

"Tampa now, Ohio originally. We moved down last year for work. My husband's company transferred him, so here we are. Ethan, let Olivia use the swing. I'm Jessica, by the way."

"Frank. Pleased to meet you."

"Michael—that's my husband—bought way too much hamburger meat for a three-day camping trip. If you'd like, we'd be happy to have you join us for dinner. The kids seem to be having a great time together."

"I'll leave that up to Mary. We have plenty of condiments."

~

Michael was a big-framed guy with wire-rimmed glasses and dark hair that was just starting to thin at the crown. Olivia, in particular, took after him. "Thanks for joining us," he said with a grin and a wave of his obviously new barbecue spatula. The burgers were already on the grill.

"Mary insisted and I wasn't going to argue." Frank smiled. "I've got plenty of condiments back in our cooler if you need any."

"Meat's not the only thing I overbought," Michael said. "Unless you're looking for something exotic, we've got everything right here."

"Frank," Mary said from where she and Ethan and Olivia were using twigs to play tic-tac-toe in the still-damp dirt of the campsite, "can you bring the root beer?"

"Only if it's okay with Michael and Jessica."

"Fine by us," Michael said, "Right, sweetie?"

"Sure! We've also got Coke and 7-Up if you'd like something other than root beer, Mary."

"Thanks, but Frank says I can't have Coke because it keeps me up all night and I only have 7-Up when I have a cold, so I'm sticking to root beer."

~

While they assembled the burgers, Jessica asked, "So it's just the two of you out here? Mary's mom didn't come with you?"

Although Jessica had been talking to him, not Mary, it was Mary who answered. "Frank's my uncle," she said. "He adopted me after my mom died, so it's always just the two of us."

Jessica looked at him, eyebrows raised, slight suspicion in her expression. Frank bit back a sigh and steeled himself to tell a sanitized version of the truth again. "My sister passed away when Mary was just a baby," he explained. "I've been raising her since she was six months old."

He'd had variations on this conversation with her friends' parents. It always went one of two ways: either they gave a sympathetic nod and changed the subject and that was that, or they gave a sympathetic nod and changed the subject and were awkward about it. Thankfully, Jessica and Michael were more in the former category than the latter.

They were an affectionate couple, almost exotically normal. Frank kept their conversation light and about the kids and watched their affectionate back-and-forth with an unfamiliar spark of envy. "How long have you been married?" he asked.

"Sixteen years," said Michael. "We married right out of college."

He helped them clean up while the kids played tag in the clearing between the campsite and the water. "Thanks for this," he said, "Mary was a little unsure about going camping. It's been nice for her, having people her own age to play with."

"Our pleasure," said Jessica. "It's kept ours from fighting like cats and dogs."

When they were back at their site, he and Mary sat in a folding chair under the canopy and watched the sunset paint the clouds in yellow and orange. "Did you have fun today?" he asked.

Mary leaned back against him, her sun hat squishing against his chin. "Yep. I'm glad you made me go. And don't say I told you so. That's just rude."

~

Heavy rain in the middle of the night woke them both, Mary making him pull the air mattresses together so her sleeping bag could be right next to his.

"The good news is, the tent's not leaking," he told her, putting his arm around her and kissing the top of her head. "So you can go back to sleep and know you'll still be dry in the morning, even if the campsite isn't."

"It's really loud," she said, sleeping bag rustling as she rolled closer. "I hope Fred and Loui can sleep through it."

"They're in an apartment, not in a tent. Of course they can sleep through it."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

Soon after, he heard her breathing soften and slow as she relaxed back into sleep. He kissed her head again, smiling, and went back to sleep himself.

~

By sunrise, the rain had given way to cloudy skies. If it had been anything like the morning before, with its thunderstorms and heavy rain, Mary might have had a point about not going camping in June, but they lucked out in that it stayed dry for most of the day. Mary went off looking for lizards with Olivia and Ethan, who were leaving that morning, so Frank went and helped Jessica and Michael pack up their campsite.

"Ready for lunch?" he asked Mary after they'd said their goodbyes.

"I think so," she said. "Can we go looking for birds when we're done?"

"Sure," he replied. "You know my grandmother—your great-grandmother—used to go birdwatching every weekend."

"Did you ever go with her?"

"No. I only met her a few times and the only person she asked to go birdwatching with her then was Evelyn."

Evelyn's mother had been every bit as rigid and controlling as Evelyn, maybe more so, their always strained relationship made worse by his parents' marriage and his arrival. The last time they'd visited her in England, Diane, still barely more than a toddler, already reading and talking to anyone who would listen about mathematics, had accidentally broken a delicate and apparently irreplaceable china figurine of a dove in flight. The ensuing row between Evelyn and their grandmother had been the end of things.

Mary's version of birdwatching was anything but formal. Instead of his grandmother's expensive binoculars and precise notebooks recording the details of every bird she saw, it was Mary running around, poking her head into branches and excitedly calling at Frank to come look when she saw something she deemed interesting. It was exhausting and entertaining. Exhilarating.

"Do we have to leave?" she asked that night, face smudged with marshmallow and chocolate, the front of her shirt a cumulative mess of three s'more's worth of graham cracker crumbs.

"We do, bright and early, but we can come back some other time if you liked it."

"Just not in June next time," she said.

~*~

Frank beat Bonnie to the coffee shop again, but just by a few minutes, few enough that he still waiting for them to pour his drip when she came in. She looked around until she spotted him, then smiled, motioned to the seats, and got in line. Today she was wearing a pair of cutoffs that made her legs look a million miles long and a lacy white halter top. Her sunglasses were pushed up and hair was down around her shoulders and he was more aware of her than he had any right to be. He had been for a while now; he just hadn't wanted to admit it.

Bonnie dropped his spare keys on the table in front of him and sat down. "Welcome back," she said. "Sorry. I had to park a couple of blocks away."

"Thanks for watching the cats for us. Were they any trouble?"

She leaned back, eyebrows raised. "Who? Fred and Loui?" Then she grinned, eyes crinkling up at the corners. "No. They were no trouble. To my surprise, they didn't fight over the food bowl, everything that was supposed to go in litter box went in the litter box, and neither of them bothered trying to escape when I caught my dress on the doorknob and had a hard time closing it. Chili was trouble when I came home smelling like Loui, but Fred and Loui themselves were fine. How was camping?"

"Good. It was nice to get Mary out of her head and out in the world for more than just an hour or two at a time. For all that I had to drag her to it kicking and screaming, she's been pestering me to find out when we can go back."

"My dad used to drag me out camping when I was her age."

"And did you like it?"

"Me? Oh, no. I hated it. The mosquitos, on the other hand, loved it when I went camping. We'd go as far from civilization as he could take us. There are a lot of really, really nasty mosquitos out in the swampy middle of nowhere, the Everglades. Though it's good for photography."

"Well, this was very civilized camping. There's a store, showers, and considering that it's June, the mosquitos were very well-behaved."

"For mosquitos."

He tipped his head in acknowledgment. "For mosquitos."

"What about you? I can't picture your mother camping."

"Neither could Evelyn. Not that I blame her. I went once with Dad. It was very…well, very wet and uncomfortable, both physically and emotionally."

"How old were you?"

"A little younger than Mary is now. Dad had a romantic idea of the woods and little to no practical knowledge of what to do when he got there, let alone what to do when he got there with a disgruntled seven-year-old in tow. He left both disillusioned and disappointed."

"What was he like?"

"Evelyn's polar opposite."

"Oh?"

"Dad was mercurial, passionate. He abhorred responsibility. The only thing they had in common was that they were both brilliant. Neither of them should have been parents and they definitely never should have married."

"Why did they?"

Frank looked at one of the paintings for sale on the wall across from him, a child with a violin in broad strokes and primary colors. He looked back at Bonnie and with a rueful smile said, "Me."

"Oh," she said again, wincing.

"Mary made some friends out there," he said, changing the subject. "Olivia and Ethan. They spent a lot of time looking for birds and lizards in the trees."

~

The kiss, when it happened, took them both by surprise.

He'd walked her back to her car. They'd talked the whole way, and they'd kept talking long after getting back to where she'd parked. When he turned to go after saying goodbye, she touched her hand to his arm and he turned back to her and then they were kissing, slow and deep, her arms looped around his neck, his hands at the small of her back, his back pressed against her passenger side door.

In the silence after, he was hyperaware of the pounding of his heart, the feel of her mouth still somehow there on his, even though she'd stepped away. Hyperaware of the conflicting expressions on her face as she stood there, reddened lips still slightly parted, eyes wide and confused before her brows drew down in consternation.

"I shouldn't have, I didn't mean—" she said quickly, then stopped. He waited, watching her growing distress with a sinking feeling. "I mean—" she stopped again and swallowed, eyes closing briefly as she collected herself. Finally, she said, "I don't think this is a good idea."

Frank nodded, breathed, and replied, "Okay."

Her expression had settled into vaguely embarrassed and apologetic. "Can we just forget I did that?"

He valued her friendship enough to lie and say, "Yes."

"Okay, good. That's good. I'm sorry."

"Bonnie, don't worry about it." The uncomfortable tightness of his jeans was an awkward reminder of how long it had been since the last time he'd done anything like this. Not since the night she'd come home with him as his life began unraveling.

The worst part was knowing he could have had more with her then, had he wanted it, like he suspected he wanted it now. No, like he knew he wanted it now.

She didn't call or text him the next day, or the next. Then it had been a week without hearing from her, then two, the longest they'd gone without talking in months.

When she finally did call, she sounded embarrassed and uncomfortable.

"I think I thought that maybe kissing you would get it out of my system, and we could just keep being friends, like we had been, but that didn't happen and I'm not sure what to do next."

"What do you want to do next?" he asked.

"I don't know," she said. "I need to think about things, and I need to prepare for next year's first graders before school starts."

"Prepare for the first graders first. There's plenty of time to think about the rest of it later."

"I'll call you when I've had time to think. I'm sorry. I know I'm being stupid."

"You're not."

~*~

_Want to grab a beer?_ the first text read. _Last year's first graders were better :(_ said the second. The third text said, _my treat :)_

He typed out _sure_ and, after he sent that, _call me._

The phone buzzed a moment later. "Sorry," she said, "Everyone else I know just texts. I keep forgetting your phone doesn't…do that."

"It does do that, it just doesn't do that efficiently. You know, being friends with someone who sends texts is the only reason I've ever even considered budgeting for a smartphone and a data plan. Roberta still has a landline. Or she just knocks on my door."

"Right. You know what, I'm going to start over. So, do you want to grab a beer?"

Amused, he said, "Sure."

"Good. Ferg's?"

"Maybe somewhere a little quieter." And with a lot less history.

"Your place?"

Well, at least it was quieter.

~

"I would offer you a beer," he said, "but Mary needed some things for school, and I didn't have a chance to pick any up. If you're willing to wait, I can run to the store."

"I'm buying, remember? Is there one within walking distance?"

"If you're not too picky about your beer, yes."

"I am willing to lower my standards."

It was a clear and calm summer evening, the kind that reminded him why he liked it here, hurricanes and palmetto bugs and all. They walked side by side, the back of their hands brushing, his head bent to listen as Bonnie told him about this newest group of first graders. She didn't wear perfume, but he could smell her shampoo, a faint trace of sweetness and warmth that reminded him of holidays at other people's houses.

"I had not one, not two, not even three, but four meltdowns on the first day," she said.

"That's a lot of meltdowns."

"It would have been five, but I managed to hold it together until I got home. How's Mary liking second grade?"

"She's reserving judgment. She told me last night that Miss Buchanan is nice but might be too nice to deal with second graders."

"Miss Buchanan is very new," Bonnie said in the tones of one who agreed with what Mary had said but couldn't say it out loud.

"What were you like, back when you were very new?"

"Stern," she answered without hesitation. "Very, very stern. And yes"—a vigorous nod sent her curls bouncing—"I was definitely overcompensating."

"I was the same way," he told her. "I was no Diane, but I graduated both high school and university early, so I was comparatively young when I started teaching and I looked younger. Being stern felt like the only way I could get a bunch of undergraduates who thought they knew everything to listen to me."

"You don't talk much about teaching."

"There's not a lot to talk about really. That part of my life died with Diane."

"You must have wanted to teach, though. I mean, that's a pretty big commitment."

"I did. And I was good at it. Still, I don't think I could go back to it now."

Bonnie got the door before he could. "Why is that?"

They were all the way to the cooler before he replied. "Because I still don't know the answers, but I'm at peace with that now. I never used to be. It's healthier, but it doesn't make for many publishable papers."

"That's very philosophical of you," she said with a mischievous smile as she grabbed a six-pack of Rolling Rock off the shelf.

"Touché."

~

"You know what? I should have picked up some Cheetos." Bonnie frowned at the almost empty beer bottle in her hand, her second of the night.

"I have a bag of Pirate's Booty tucked away. It might be a little stale, though. Mary only liked it for approximately two days before she moved back to Goldfish."

"It's not quite the same. I mean, I'll take you up on that offer, but I would like you to acknowledge that Pirate's Booty does, in fact, taste like packing peanuts."

"You will get no arguments from me."

She leaned back on the couch, her legs stretched out in front of her. "This feels a little like college only with much less Jäegermeister."

"I don't have any of that tucked away. Nor do I have any cough syrup to use as a substitute." He glanced at the time, surprised to see it was closing in on midnight. They'd been talking for hours about life, movies, music—anything and everything. He could see why she thought it felt like college. "I'll go get the Pirate's Booty," he said, starting to rise. She'd need to get home soon, so no sense offering her another beer.

"Just a sec, stay there," she said, setting her bottle down. Then she turned towards him, pushed him back down and kissed him, one hand on the back of the couch for balance, the other first on his shoulder, then sliding up to the back of his head as they kept kissing, bodies twisted awkwardly until she broke away just long enough to straddle his lap and then they were kissing again.

It went on for what felt like hours, her breasts brushing against his chest, his hands tangling in her soft hair. This time when she broke away, she rested her forehead on his, breathing heavily, before a soft giggle escaped her and she sat up, thighs still bracketing his.

"I meant it," she said.

He reached up and stroked her cheek. "I'm glad."

"I should get off you now. I need to use the facilities." She stayed where she was, her hands on his shoulders, watching him with smile on her face. "I will get up any minute now."

She did. Eventually.

~

"What time is it?" Bonnie was curled up against him, drowsily running her fingers up and down his chest. She stifled a yawn and curled closer.

Frank checked the time. "Quarter to two."

"That's very late," she observed. "Okay."

He wasn't sure who drifted off first, but when his bladder woke him, it was a little past three. Bonnie was still curled against him, deep in sleep. She remained so as he untangled their bodies, carefully lowering her to the couch. When she didn't rouse when he got back from the bathroom, he lifted her and carried her to his bed, where he tucked her under the covers.

He'd meant to go back to the couch, he had, but he made the mistake of lying down for a second first and the next thing he knew, morning light was streaming in beneath the window shades and Bonnie was awake, quietly watching him.

"Good morning," she said.

"I'll make some coffee," he muttered against the pillow. He rolled over and sat up. "There's a spare toothbrush in the basket in the bathroom if you want to brush your teeth."

"I will take you up on both those things."

~

"Toast?" he offered when she came back out of the bathroom, her hair now pulled back and her dress damp where she'd tried to smooth the worst of the wrinkles out. He handed her a cup of coffee.

Bonnie shook her head and sat down at the table. "My mouth's too minty. Sugar?" He got the sugar bowl down from the cupboard and set it next to her. "Thank you. I should get going after this, so Chili doesn't start to feel like I've abandoned him. He wasn't very happy when school started up again."

"Still with the shoes?"

"Only the first day. Are you doing anything tonight?"

"Mary and I usually watch UFC, but if Roberta's willing to have her again, she'd probably happily skip it this week."

"If she is, do you want to come over? Or go out?"

"Yes. I would."

"Just so we're clear, I am asking you out."

"I know."

She smiled into her coffee. "Good."

~*~

"Have you seen my grey kitten?" Mary asked, digging through her pile of stuffed animals. "I want to take it with me to Anna's."

"Did you leave it at Roberta's? I'm supposed to drop you off in half an hour."

She tossed another stuffed animal behind her and kept digging. "I dunno. Maybe? It's not here."

"Get your things together. I'll go check with Roberta."

~

The grey kitten was on Roberta's couch, right next to the pillows and blankets Mary used whenever she slept over. "I was about to come bring it over."

"Thanks. I needed to ask you something, anyway, but it can wait until I've dropped Mary off at Anna's."

~

"You all right?" Roberta looked at him expectantly.

Frank shook his head. "It's not important."

"Not important," she repeated, flat and unimpressed. "You know full well you didn't call me over here for something not important. What's going on, Frank?"

"Nothing that should alarm anyone." Then, "Bonnie came over last night."

"And?"

"And she spent the night. Before you say anything, all we did was sleep and she's not Mary's teacher this year."

"That doesn't magically make this a good idea. What were you thinking, Frank? Or were you?"

That he'd been enjoying spending time with her, that she'd been enjoying spending time with him, that he'd spent the last two months wanting to kiss her again, that he liked her and had missed her while she was thinking about things between them. That she hadn't hesitated when she'd leaned up and kissed him and that both of them needed this. "I thought you liked Bonnie."

Mild rebuke in her voice, she replied. "I do. And so does Mary."

"And so do I."

"Mmm-hmm."

"Relax. Whatever happens between me and Bonnie isn't going to screw things up for Mary."

"So why did you call me over?"

"Because I wanted to ask if you could have Mary again tonight so that Bonnie could have me over tonight."

Eyebrows flying up, she repeated, "Have you over tonight?"

"She wants to see me again and she doesn't want to leave Chili alone for a second night in a row."

"I've told you I am happy to have Mary whenever you're willing to let her stay. I may think you're out of your mind, but Mary's welcome to come over when she's done at her friend's house."

~

"Hey you," Bonnie said when he picked up the phone. "I remembered to call this time and not text." She sounded proud of herself and simultaneously amused at the idea that it was anything to be proud of, her lilting words warm and conspiratorial.

"I still keep thinking about getting a smartphone, but maybe it's good that we can't easily text. I like to hear your voice," he said.

"I like to hear your voice, too." She paused. "That makes me sound like I'm sixteen."

"Roberta said she'll have Mary tonight and Mary said she's fine skipping UFC."

"So you can come over?"

"If you still want me to."

"I would not have asked you if I did not want you to."

"Are we going out or staying in?"

"Staying in," she said. Then added. "Definitely. Bring a toothbrush and a change of clothes."

~

Bonnie kissed him as soon as he'd shut her apartment door. "Sorry. I've wanted to do that since this morning," she said, arms still looped around his neck.

"So have I," he replied, then he lowered his head to kiss her again, his hands going to her hips as her lips slipped open beneath his. He could taste the waxy sweetness of her lip balm, a faint hint of mouthwash.

They ended up going straight to the bedroom, pausing only long enough for him to kick off his shoes before they were pushing open the bedroom door, still kissing as she scrabbled at the doorknob, still kissing as his knees hit the mattress. They fell in a tangle on top of the bed, his hands frantically pushing up her shirt, hers unbuckling his belt and fumbling for his zipper.

Eventually, they managed to coordinate enough to get undressed, their clothes ending up scattered across the room. They fell into each other laughing, mouth on mouth, skin on skin.

She shivered as he brushed his palm over her breast, gasped and panted against his mouth as he worked her with the other hand, two fingers curled inside her, palm pressing rhythmically against her clit.

"Just a sec," she said, breathless. "The condoms are in the bedside table."

Frank kissed her. "Do you want me to get one?"

She nodded. "Yes. Yes, I do."

~

"I didn't plan on jumping you the moment you got here," she said.

"I'm not objecting." They were still naked, under her sheets now, her head on his chest, one slim leg thrown over his thighs. Chili had at some point wandered in and was grooming himself next to Frank's head.

"I know I said we'd stay in, but do you want to get dinner? There's a good diner a couple of blocks away."

He was too comfortable to really want to move but hungry enough to know he needed to, so he agreed.

The diner was a short walk, the air conditioning inside a welcome relief from the August heat and humidity. Frank watched Bonnie examine the menu, her nose wrinkling occasionally when she saw something she disliked, and giving a little nod at things she was considering.

"You should never play poker," he said.

"I know. I learned the hard way in college." She gave him a pained look. "It was strip poker."

Frank laughed. "Ouch."

"It was my late best friend's idea and I do not recommend it. What are you having?"

He looked at the menu that he should have been reading instead of watching Bonnie read. "I'm not sure yet. Any suggestions?"

"I like the French dip. The Reuben is also good."

~

"Do you want to do this again next weekend?" Bonnie asked him the next morning. She reached up to get a coffee filter out of the cabinet, the nightshirt she'd thrown on riding up and exposing the curve of her ass above her thighs.

"Friday, yes. Saturday I should stay in with Mary. It's the only night she gets to stay up late with me."

She made scrambled eggs while the coffee brewed. "You can clear space at the table if you want to," she said. "Otherwise we'll have to eat on the couch."

"I'm fine with eating on the couch."

"I almost never use the table for anything other than work," she said, dishing out the eggs. "I don't usually have people over."

"I'm glad you made an exception."

"I am happy to make one again. Often."

~*~

Rain pattered against the roof and windows, the rumbling thunder sending Loui into hiding again. It was the only thing she seemed to be afraid of, her urgent need to escape it sometimes leaving her running in place like something out of a cartoon before she found traction. Frank and Bonnie sat on the couch, a half-eaten box of pizza and a few empty beers in front of them. Fred, unbothered by the storm, slumbered on the floor at their feet.

Tonight, the third consecutive Friday they'd spent together, they'd been talking about their respective childhoods, which inevitably led to talking about family. Bonnie's was simple compared to his: an only child, parents divorced, but amicably and not until she was in college, one stepparent that she liked, one she didn't.

"Tell me about Diane." It was a question, even though it sounded like a request.

"She was brilliant, obviously. Beautiful. And she could be hilarious. And she could be cutting and nasty when she angry. She knew exactly which buttons to push. Impulsive, almost reckless. When she was a kid, she didn't want anything to do with people her own age, then when she was older, she didn't know how."

"That sounds rough."

"Diane…Diane was the worst possible combination of arrogant and insecure. The things that came to her easily came so easily and garnered her so much acclaim that she either didn't see a lot of value in the things that were hard for her or she just found them too frustrating to deal with. And sometimes, it made her awful to be around. I wonder, if I'd been more patient with her, if I'd been around more when she was upset and wanted to talk to me, if I hadn't made a habit of putting her off until I was ready to deal with her…maybe she'd still be here. I wasn't, though. I can't change that."

He'd loved Diane almost as fiercely as he loved Mary, but he hadn't been able to stand her at times. She could be as difficult and as nasty as Evelyn and as hot-headed and moody as their dad. And she'd known him better than anyone, all the better to stick the knife in when she was angry with him. Not that he'd been entirely innocent of that, either.

"I hated being an only child," Bonnie said, "I always wanted a brother or sister so I had someone who understood my family. I can't imagine what it must have been like, losing her."

"The first month, I was still in shock, trying to figure out what to do about Mary, trying to make sense of everything. And we didn't talk, not regularly, not really, but I kept waking up thinking I needed to call her, to talk to her. Then I'd remember and it would all come crashing back down around me."

"When my best friend died, I would forget sometimes and something would happen and I'd think, 'I need to tell Maddy about this.' I'd get as far as dialing her number and I'd only remember when it started to ring."

"I did that a few times. I'd let it ring until it went to voicemail, just so I could hear her outgoing message."

Bonnie squeezed her eyes closed. "This is Maddy. Either I'm having fun or I'm blowing you off. Leave a message and if I'm having fun, I'll call you!" she recited before opening them again.

"Diane's was the very definition of basic. 'You've reached Diane's phone. Leave a message.' What was Maddy like?"

"Very, very funny. I mean, _very_ funny. No, she was hilarious and she made you feel like you, too, were hilarious when you were with her, like you were all in on the same joke." Bonnie reached for her purse, rummaging around until she found her wallet. She pulled out a picture and handed it to him, a young woman with blonde streaked hair and huge sunglasses leaning against a graffitied brick wall, flipping off the camera and grinning. "That was pretty much Maddy. I took it while we were in New Orleans on spring break. This was as close as I ever got to getting her to pose for my camera. She hated having her picture taken." She stared at the photo for a minute, then put it back away.

Thunder cracked again, loud enough this time for Fred to open his eye and look around. Bonnie leaned over and scratched him behind the ears.

"It's hard to talk to most people about her," she said. "They assume I'm being morbid, but it's not that."

"You just miss her."

"All the time." With a sigh, Bonnie said, "I'm sorry. I've made this about me."

"You haven't. I asked. And I miss Diane, too. I see so much of her in Mary that it used to scare me, but Mary's her own person—much more grounded than Diane ever was."

"She has a good head on her shoulders. That's all you."

The conversation shifted back to lighter things. Frank filled Bonnie in on Mary's latest reports on Miss Buchanan's classroom management struggles, which according to Mary were seemingly insurmountable. Bonnie wisely avoided comment.

~

They overslept, and Frank swore when he looked at the clock and saw the time. Bonnie cracked her eyes open, glanced at him and glanced at the clock and sat up, the sheets falling to her waist.

"I'll be going now," she said, swinging her legs off the bed and standing in one fluid motion. "Don't worry. You still have fifteen minutes until Mary gets back." Bonnie grabbed her overnight bag and pulled out a change of clothes. She tugged on her underwear and pulled her dress over her head, then gathered up what she'd left on his floor the night before.

"I don't have time to make you coffee," he said apologetically as he got dressed.

She gave him a quick kiss. "That's okay. I'll take a raincheck."

"Thanks," he said. "It's awkward for her if someone's here when she gets back."

"It's fine."

~*~

"Are you going out with Miss Stevenson again tonight?" Mary asked. She poked at her plate, trying to spear a carrot.

"I am. We're going to see a movie after you go over to Roberta's."

"Is she your girlfriend?"

Even though they'd spent almost every Friday and more than a few Saturdays together since August, going on two months now, even though he had long since admitted to himself—though not to Bonnie—that he loved her, the question unsettled him unexpectedly. "I don't know. Maybe."

Eyebrows drawn together, Mary said, "You should know something like that. Adults are weird."

~

"We don't have to define it," he said to Bonnie that night in the lobby of the movie theatre. He'd mentioned Mary's question as he'd parked the truck.

For a moment, she was quiet, her face still and as close to unreadable as it ever got. "No," she said finally, a little too quickly. "We don't. You're right. Do you want popcorn?"

"Sure. I'll find our seats."

As he waited, he thought about her reaction, wondering if he was reading into it, almost certain that he wasn't, uncertain how to proceed, uneasy at the once-familiar panicked irritation prickling beneath his skin. When she came back, he watched her carefully, seeing the faint tightness in her jaw, the slight pause before she smiled.

"I forgot to ask if you wanted butter," she said. "But I wanted butter. I did bring extra napkins."

The movie was beautifully filmed and wonderfully acted, but formulaic. It was exactly the sort of period piece that Evelyn's circle, though not Evelyn herself, would have loved. Evelyn would have watched it with them, politely laughing when they did, then she'd have mercilessly dissected it over dinner when she got home, brutally, shrewishly funny. Beside him, Bonnie shifted in her seat, the restless movement betraying her lack of engagement. When she liked a movie, she was always quiet and focused, watching the screen in rapt attention. 

"It seemed more interesting in the trailers," she said apologetically on their way back to the truck.

"The performances were good."

"The performances were very good. I just didn't enjoy the movie. Why don't we go back to my place and see what's on Netflix?"

~

He had his hand on her hip, fingers lazily stroking the soft skin of her pelvis above the waistband of her underwear. She made a comfortable noise and rocked back against him, opening her legs and throwing one behind his thigh to give him better access. His hand slipped between her legs, fingertips rhythmically pressing her clit through the thin fabric covering it. Her breathing quickened, as did the rock of her hips, his own underwear slipping down enough to expose the head of his dick, which poked at the gusset of her underwear, teasing her with its pressure until she murmured for him to grab a condom.

In sex at least, they were still in sync. Frank pulled his boxers off and reached for a condom, rolling it on while she scrambled out of her underwear. He pushed inside of her, fucking her slowly until she was a panting mess, then letting her take control. It was good. They were good, at least for now.

~*~

There was something almost meditative about working on mechanical things, a simple certainty around the process. Things stopped working, you figured out what the problem was, and either you could fix it or you couldn't, or they worked imperfectly and you just needed to adjust them. It was part of why he had chosen it for a career after he'd left Boston with baby Mary in the backseat of his impractical Toyota hatchback. He'd traded the car in for the truck, the tenure-track job for the diesel and oil of the dock, his comfortable life and casual friendships for Mary's happiness.

There was no such certainty with people.

The fractures between him and Bonnie were small ones still, almost imperceptible, but they were growing. He waited as long as he could stand to, watching her grow ever so slightly more pensive and distant when they were together, before he finally broached the subject.

"Whatever's been bothering you," he said as they were in her bed one night, though he suspected he already knew, "you might as well just say it."

Bonnie was quiet; he could feel the tension in her body. Then she drew an unsteady breath.

"I like you a lot," she said. "I think I might even love you, but I'm in my mid-thirties and I want to settle down and have a family before I can't and I don't know if you're someone who will ever be capable of that. I don't want to wake up one day and realize I've lost my chance at something I really want because I was waiting on someone who didn't want the same thing."

"Bonnie—"

"I'm not saying we should stop seeing each other." She closed her eyes and exhaled. "I'm saying I need to know what you want. And I'm not trying to pressure you into anything or make you define things, I'm really not. I just…if you can't, I need to know sooner rather than later."

"I get that, I do." There wasn't much more that he could say. "And I wish I had answers for you."

In a sad, tired voice, she said, "I know you do. I keep telling myself that what we have right now is good and that it's only been three months and I shouldn't mess it up or rock the boat, that maybe I don't want what I think I want and can be happy the way things are, but I know I'm lying to myself."

She shifted so she was on her side facing him and rested her head against his shoulder. Frank stroked her hair, wondering if it would be kinder for him to leave, selfishly unwilling to, even if it was.

"I'm lying to myself if I say I just like you," she admitted, looking up at him. "I love you and that's making everything harder. It's fine if this is casual for you, but it's not casual for me, and I guess I just needed you to know that."

Frank kissed her, a light brush of his lips intended to comfort that soon changed to something urgent and primal. He was terrified, of what he couldn't say. Losing her, losing himself, irrevocably breaking what he'd already damaged. He slid his hands to her hips, tugging her until she was straddling him, her hair falling down in a curtain around his face as they kept kissing.

She whimpered against his mouth and he rolled them over, kissed her neck, her collarbone. Closed his mouth over her right breast, sucking hard on her nipple until she was panting, then repeating it with the left. He slid down her body, kissed the inside of her thigh and then buried his face between her legs, licking and sucking until his jaw was aching and Bonnie was falling apart beneath him.

When her hands dropped away from his head and her breathing started to slow, he finally stopped, resting his forehead against her belly, painfully aroused and trying to ignore it.

Bonnie pulled him up by the shoulders. She kissed him, soft and slow. "I love you," she said. She wrapped her hand around his dick, just a couple of firm strokes enough to bring him off.

"Do you want me to leave?" he asked when they had cleaned themselves up.

"No," she said. "But I think I need to give you some time to think after you go home tomorrow."

A rueful half-laugh escaped him. "Are you saying we should take a break?"

"I'm saying you need time to think," she said gently.

~

"You all right?" Roberta looked at him, concern in her eyes.

"You've known me a long time. Can I ask you something?"

"What is it?" The concern was in her voice as well.

He wasn't sure what to say next; opening his mouth hadn't made the inchoate questions suddenly take form despite his desperate need to ask them, the whole reason he'd called her and told her he needed to talk to her.

"Frank."

"I don't know what I'm doing."

"What else is new?" she muttered, exasperation slipping in. "Go on."

"Bonnie and I have been seeing each other for a while now. Long enough that she wants to know where we're headed and I don't have an answer I can give her. I don't know if I can do this. She doesn't know if I can do this."

He could see her unspoken I-told-you-so. "Well, do you want to?"

"Wanting's not the problem." And it wasn't, not really, at least not the whole of it.

"Then what is?"

"I used to think this was the one area where I had an advantage over Diane. I knew how to talk to people, how to get along socially. But the truth is, only when it's superficial. Anything deeper and I'm no better at it than she was. Diane at least was able to throw her whole heart into things, for all the good that did her."

"Unless you think our friendship's superficial, you've managed it with me for the better part of a decade," she said, unimpressed.

"You're the exception that proves the rule."

"What do you want out of this, Frank?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe you should start by figuring that out."

"I've been trying, believe me." He hadn't thought about much else in the last week.

~

Quietly, so as not to wake Mary, Frank got out of the bed where he'd spent the last hour staring at the ceiling and headed to the kitchen to get a glass of water. Insomnia was nothing new, even when he wasn't mulling his life over way into the night. When he was young, he'd dealt with it by reading until his eyes glazed over. When he was older, he'd dealt with it by working on research and papers well into the night. Nowadays it was back to books for the most part and staring at the ceiling when reading didn't work. He stood at the sink, glass in hand, Loui winding her way around his ankles, and thought about things until the water was gone.

He grabbed his phone on the way back to the bedroom. When he looked at the screen, it informed him it was nearly four in the morning. He thumbed out a message to Bonnie, _call when you get up_ , and set the phone down.

It buzzed a minute later.

"Did I wake you?" he asked, though she usually had her phone on mute when she went to bed.

"I wasn't asleep."

"I couldn't sleep," he said. "I don't know. I told Roberta that. That I don't know what I'm doing."

"Do you want me to come over?"

"It's four in the morning."

"I am aware of the time. Do you want me to come over?"

"I'll unlock the back door so we don't wake up Mary."

~

He met her in the kitchen, silently leading her back to his bedroom where they sat on the edge of his bed. With the light on, he could see that her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen.

"You've been crying," he said.

"I tried not to, but I was so frustrated with myself that I did anyway. I guess we should probably talk."

"You're right, we should."

"When you asked me to call, what were you going to say?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "I was hoping to have figured it out by the time you got my message."

"Oh." She smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners in genuine amusement before her face grew serious again.

"I told Roberta I don't know what I'm doing, and that's true. I need to be very clear about that. I love you, I want you in my life, in Mary's life, probably even to have a family with you someday, but I'm terrified."

"Of what?"

"My family doesn't exactly have a great history with relationships, you know that. My parents…" he shook his head. "My parents were so miserably unhappy that Dad's death almost came as a relief to everyone involved. And the only good thing to ever come out of any of Diane's attempts at one was Mary.

"Most of my earliest memories are of my parents fighting. They were vicious with each other. Bloodthirsty. It got worse after they had Diane. She was their way of trying to fix their marriage, I think. When that didn't work—" Frank stopped. He looked at Bonnie, sitting there with her eyes sad and compassionate. Looked down at his hands and continued, "I don't want Mary to ever have to live with anything like that. Or any child. So I guess what I'm most afraid of is history repeating itself." 

Her hand touched his shoulder, then pulled back. "Would you believe me if I promised you that, no matter what happens, it won't?"

"That's not a promise anyone can make. I wish it was." He sighed. "And that's entirely on me. Sometimes, I think I got the worst of both of them. Dad's temper, Evelyn's stubbornness and selfishness."

"You're not selfish."

"Tell that to Diane." The guilt from everything he hadn't bothered enough to see would never go away. "Cards on the table: I want this to work. I want us to work. I don't like thinking about my life without you in it and I've thought about it a lot. I just don't know how."

"You told me once that you were at peace with not knowing the answers. Is that still true?"

"I hope so. I'm willing to find out."

"Me too."

~

Bonnie fell asleep before he did, still fully dressed beneath his sheets, her body curled trustingly against him. Eventually, he let the even sound of her breathing lull him to sleep as well. They were both still asleep when the door opened, the squeak of the hinges and Mary's voice saying, "Frank, can I have Eggos for breakfast?" waking them up.

Mary's eyes widened and Frank gave thanks that all they'd done after they'd talked was sleep. "Yes, but give me a minute, okay?"

"Hi, Miss Stevenson."

"Good morning, Mary."

"Bonnie, would you like to join us for breakfast?" he asked.

Looking a little embarrassed, she smiled and said, "Yes, I would like that very much."

~

"Roberta and I watched Frozen again Friday night." Mary poured what looked like half the bottle of syrup on her waffles. "She tells me we should try watching something else, but she always sings along anyway."

"Oh yeah?" Bonnie said with barely concealed amusement. It felt right, having her here.

"Frank won't let me watch it until after Thanksgiving. He gave me a six month…" She frowned. "What was the word again?"

"Moratorium."

"A six-month moratorium. But it's almost over."

Next to him, he heard Bonnie swallow a laugh. "Mary saw it for the first time last year and it was the only thing she would watch for months after," he explained.

"Frank? Can we go somewhere with snow sometime?" Mary asked. "I want to build a snowman."

"Maybe," he replied. "But believe me, snow is highly overrated."

He walked Bonnie to her car after breakfast. "Thank you," she said.

"For what?"

"I know you've been trying to keep this"—she gestured between them—"separate from Mary."

"I had," he said. "And this was an accident, no mistake about it, but I'm glad it happened. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it and if this is going to work, Mary needs to spend time with you. I need to let Mary spend time with you"

"And that's what you want? Truly?" she asked, naked vulnerability on her face.

"It is."

~*~

The laundry room was usually empty this time of day, which was why he liked it. It was also why Roberta liked it. Fewer chances of having to deal with tenant problems while washing her delicates. "You could just do your laundry after hours," he'd told her once. "You have the keys." To which she'd said, "Rules are rules."

He hadn't pointed out that her habit of using them whenever she needed to get into his place belied that claim, but he hadn't needed to. She'd looked at him, sighed, and said, "Don't you say a word. You know you're a different situation."

She was in there now, a tattered copy of _Metaphysics of Morals_ in her hands, several loads of laundry already started.

"Morning, Frank," she said without looking up. She flipped the page.

"Roberta." He set his laundry basket down and started sorting out the loads. "Does anyone else here know you're an ex-academic?"

"You're the only one," she said. "And you'd better keep it that way. The last thing I need is a bunch of sarcastic tenants calling me doctor."

"I keep your secret, you keep mine," he said, smiling. "Can you have Mary again on Saturday?"

This time, she looked up. "Again?"

"Not overnight, we're just having dinner. I'll be back in time for UFC."

"You better send her toothbrush, just in case."

"Bonnie has to leave for her mother's early Sunday. She's going to Miami for Thanksgiving," he said. "But if Mary needs a toothbrush, you've got the keys and I know you have no qualms about letting yourself in." Roberta had only left one machine free, so he loaded up the towels and sheets, then put in the quarters for the load. "Do you ever miss it?"

"What, teaching?" she said. "I was never going to get tenure, Frank. I make more doing this."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"I miss the idea of it. I don't miss the politics. Are you missing it?"

"I like what I do," he replied.

"Now who's avoiding answering the question?"

"There's a faculty position at the community college," he said. "Humanities, Philosophy, and Religion. I saw it when I was looking at their adjunct listings. I thought you might be interested."

Her eyebrows flew practically up to her hairline. "You're looking at adjunct work?" 

"I'm thinking about it."

"Why? It can't be for the money." Adjunct work, they both knew—and Roberta knew even better than him, having done it—paid barely anything at all.

"It's not. I want to see if I can stomach teaching again. I like what I do, but I'm up for my recertification next year and it's as good a time as any to think about the future. Mary will need her own bedroom one of these days and I can't afford that if I keep freelancing. I thought I could put it off for a few more years; I'm not sure that's still the case. Eventually, it would be nice to have Bonnie over for the night and not have to send Mary to your place to sleep."

Eventually, and quite likely a sooner eventually than later at their age, that could very well mean living with Bonnie. In the meantime, Bonnie would be coming to his place Friday before Mary went to Roberta's. They'd be eating dinner together, he, Mary, and Bonnie. The plan, insofar as he had one, was for that to become a regular occurrence. He checked the pockets of a pair of Mary's jeans, pulling out several pebbles and a couple of small seashells and setting them next to the pennies and quarters he'd found in the last pair.

~

"When we get back from your mom's, we should go to the beach. The three of us," Frank said.

"I'd like that." Bonnie took a bite of her salad. "Do you mind if I bring my camera?"

"No, go ahead. Any special instructions for Chili for us while you're gone?"

"Not really. Just play with him and try to keep him out of my room. He's figured out how to nose the door open, so I'm going to block the door with the laundry basket before I leave for the airport."

"I could still give you a ride, you know."

"My mother is paying for my taxi and I don't want you to have to get up at five in the morning. But I will take you up on any offer you might make to pick me up from the airport on Friday at the much more reasonable hour of 2:38."

"Are you joining us for dinner?"

"After a week with my mom and stepdad? Oh, god yes." After a moment, she added, "I enjoyed dinner last night. Did Mary?"

"Mary did. I think she likes having an expanded audience to lecture."

"I'm glad. That she enjoyed it, that is." A slight frown wrinkled her brow. "It felt strange in ways I hadn't expected. I had dinner with both of you last year—several times, in fact—but, I don't know. It feels different to be doing it as more than just a friend."

"If it helps, Mary approves of you. And us. She says I was lonely."

"Mary's very perceptive."

"She is."

~

"He's a happier cat with Miss Stevenson," Mary said. She had Chili purring on her lap while Frank cleaned out his litter box. "He never let me hold him this long when he lived with us. It's good that she adopted him. Can I feed him?"

"Knock yourself out," he replied. "There's a can of food already on the counter."

"Frank, do you think Miss Stevenson could teach me photography?" she asked, looking at the pictures on the walls with curiosity. "Did she really take all of these?"

"Bonnie took most of them, and maybe. You'd have to ask her. What do you think you would photograph?"

"Fred," she said with a cheerful grin. "Obviously. And maybe Loui, but only if Fred's okay with it."

~

Wednesday, as he was making an emergency repair on a client's boat, Bonnie called from her mother's.

"I know it's not a real piano, but would Mary want a digital one?" she asked. She paused. "Would you be okay with Mary having a digital piano?"

"I've thought about getting her a keyboard."

"My mom and stepdad are downsizing. She wants to get rid of her Roland. I told her I could take it if you want it. It's free."

"Much as I'd love to say yes, we don't have room for it."

"You could keep it at my place until you do. I just need to know today so I know if I need to rent a van."

"If you're willing to keep it at your place, then I guess there's no good reason for me to say no. Thank you."

"You'll be helping me haul it up the stairs. How's Chili?"

"Good. He and Mary have become fast friends. How's Miami?"

"I will tell you all about it on Friday."

"Bad or good?"

She was silent for a minute. Then she said, "Just strange."

~

"They're moving to Arizona," Bonnie said, pausing to readjust her grip on the Roland. "Mom says they decided after Irma that they're too old to deal with hurricanes, so they bought a place in Phoenix near my aunt. I know I'm thirty-six and I shouldn't be upset by this, but I talk to her twice a week and she didn't say anything until she picked me up at the airport and had to explain why everything was going to be in boxes when we got to the house."

"When do they leave?"

They got to the top of the stairs and turned towards her apartment. "Next week. On the plus side, that means I won't have to go to Miami during the holiday break, which I did every year for some reason, even though she's not the parent whose holiday it is, Dad is and he's just up in Tampa."

"You don't like your stepmother," he pointed out as they set the Roland down.

"No, I don't." Bonnie fumbled in her purse for her keys and unlocked the door. "Just a minute while I lock Chili in the bedroom so he doesn't escape."

When they were done rearranging, they sat on her couch staring at the instrument that now took up most of the space to the left of her television.

"Am I being unreasonable?" she asked morosely.

"I don't have a good feel for reasonable or expected parental behavior, but no, I don't think so."

Bonnie leaned against his shoulder. "After Mary goes to Roberta's, can we get very drunk tonight? I have a bottle of tequila above the fridge I can bring with me."

~

Mary skipped down the beach a little ways ahead of them, zigging and zagging and startling the sandpipers as she cavorted on the sand.

"Stay close," he reminded her. He handed Bonnie her water bottle. "How's your head?"

"The ibuprofen has worked its magic, but I still should have let you cut me off after four shots." She raised her camera and started snapping pictures. "Or five."

She had had six to his four and despite the water he'd made her drink, was feeling the aftereffects this morning. For that matter, so was he.

Hangovers notwithstanding, they had a good day. Mary made sweeping patterns of rocks and shells around her rudimentary sandcastles and, when she tired of that, dragged Bonnie out of her chair to go explore the shore with her.

Frank watch them both, smiling as he listened to the sound of their laughter.

~

"I applied for that position at the community college you were telling me about," Roberta said, catching him at the mailbox. She had her laundry basket on her hip and her keys hanging from her wrist. "Not that I expect to hear back from them."

"Why not? You're overqualified."

"Please, I haven't taught in a decade, Frank, you know that."

"I do, but that doesn't negate what I said."

"I didn't flag you down just to tell you that," she said. She sighed and said, "Looks like I can't have Mary on Friday. Michelle and her husband are driving down with the baby and they decided to come a day early."

"How's your namesake?"

"She has two teeth already. I'm really sorry about Friday, Frank. I told Michelle I had a commitment, but I guess Nathan had to switch days off with someone at work last minute."

"It's fine, Roberta. We'll make it work."

He'd thought about it, having Mary in the house when Bonnie spent the night. Bonnie was there now when Mary left for Roberta's and frequently there when Mary came back home the next day. It wasn't, or shouldn't be, monumentally different for Bonnie to be there when Mary was asleep in the next room, no matter how monumentally different might feel to him.

"Are you sure?" Bonnie said when he told her.

"I ran it by Mary. She says she's okay with it."

~

Frank turned the TV off and turned to Mary. "Okay, time for bed. Go get into your PJs and brush your teeth."

"Roberta always lets me stay up later than this," she said, clearly angling to stay up a little longer, even though it was already an hour past her bedtime.

"Roberta does not, and if she does, then Roberta and I need to have a chat. Brush your teeth. Go on. Up."

When her last attempt at a plaintive look didn't change his mind, Mary sighed and trundled to the bathroom.

"Thank you for being willing to watch Frozen," he said to Bonnie, who was gathering up their dishes. "I know it's not our usual speed."

"Would you believe that, despite teaching first graders, this is the first time I've seen it?" she said.

"Consider yourself very lucky, then. I enjoyed it the first two or three times. It's after four or five that you start to lose your mind. I keep hoping she'll find a new obsession, but Ice Age lasted for two years, so I'm not getting my hopes up."

The big difference, of course, between having Mary at Roberta's and having Mary at home was that he and Bonnie had to retreat to the bedroom after Mary finally finished brushing her teeth and Frank tucked her in for the night.

"I brought my laptop," Bonnie said. She pulled off her dress and unhooked her bra, sliding it off her shoulders and letting it fall to the floor before she pulled on the nightshirt she'd packed. "We could still watch a movie that isn't animated."

They set the laptop up on the bed and managed to watch the first half of _Skyfall_ before Bonnie started yawning.

"I think I'm too tired to watch a movie," she said. "Can we finish it later?"

"Sure."

"I should have brushed my teeth before we went in here," Bonnie said. "Now I have to get up again."

When they'd both finished getting ready, they got into bed, her in her nightshirt, him in his boxers and t-shirt.

"This is very…domestic," Frank said, looping his arm around her waist.

She covered his hand with hers and gave it a light squeeze. "Very," she agreed and rolled to face him.

He kissed her, softly, almost chastely at first, still unsure how to handle this with Mary in the other room. Then he kissed her again, this time slowly and deliberately, his hand stroking her back through her shirt, content just to be kissing her. "I love you," he said. "I do."

They fell asleep curled comfortably together, her back pressed against his chest. Frank woke before her, squinting a little at the light and rubbing his eyes before looking over at her. In sleep, she looked younger, her lips slightly parted, her face relaxed. He brushed a stray curl off her cheek and her eyes fluttered open.

Bonnie frowned. "What time is it?" she muttered, burying her face in the pillow.

"Still early," he said, though he hadn't looked at the clock. "Go back to sleep. I'll make coffee."

~*~

Evelyn sent them a holiday card that arrived—and was postmarked—after Christmas, a tasteful non-denominational one printed on heavy, expensive card stock, the only personal touch her signature. Folded inside was a check made out to him and intended for Mary, according to what she'd written on the memo. As tempting as it was to send it back, it would have been cutting off his nose to spite his face. Custody was well and truly settled and Mary could use a few things—she'd been growing like a weed.

"Why would she send us a card?" Mary said, frowning at it. "She didn't even remember my birthday."

"If I know your grandmother, she just wanted to passive-aggressively remind us that she exists." He sighed and plucked the card out of her hand, and, after a moment, set it on the table next to the cards from Roberta and Mary's dentist instead of tossing it in the wastebasket.

"As if we could forget," Mary muttered.

He picked up the card again and looked at it. At some point in the last year, most of his bitterness and anger about Evelyn had collapsed into tired irritation and a distant sort of grieving. If things had been different, if Evelyn had been a colleague instead of his mother, Frank suspected they would have been friends. If Diane hadn't been in the picture, maybe they could have even managed a cordial relationship once Frank hit adulthood and they'd stopped butting heads. Or maybe it would have all played out almost exactly as it did.

He couldn't change her or change their past. All he could do was accept it and try his best not let it poison his or Mary's future more than it already had. 

New Year's Eve was coming up fast, just a day away now. Bonnie would be there with him and with Mary, ringing in the coming year together.

"Let's go get you some new shoes," he told Mary. "Courtesy of your grandmother."

"Can I get a pair of Converse like Bonnie's?"

Evelyn wouldn't have approved, which made it easy for him to say, "You can get two pairs."

~

Bonnie showed up on New Year's Eve in a comfortable green dress with a black cardigan over it, her usually bare nails painted with silver glitter, a faint wash of wine-red gloss on her lips. It tasted like vanilla when he kissed her. "You dressed up," he said.

"It felt appropriate, even though I don't usually. Last year, I spent New Year's Eve in my pyjamas watching old movies by myself. I brought some sparkling wine for us and sparkling apple juice for Mary. I also brought wine glasses." She handed him the tote bag that had been looped over her left arm. "Did you order the pizza already?"

"I did."

"Good, I'm starving."

~

"Are you making any resolutions?" Bonnie asked quietly when Frank returned from tucking Mary into her bed. Mary had fallen asleep between them almost as soon as the clock ticked over to midnight, the only thing that had been keeping her awake her sheer determination to usher in the new year with them.

"To not screw this up," he said and kissed her. "Happy New Year."

Bonnie took a final sip of her sparkling wine and set her empty glass down on the table next to his. "Mine is not to let you, so we are, in fact, in agreement."

"Good." He kissed her again, his hands cradling her cheeks, just enough of a buzz in him for him to stop worrying about Mary's proximity.

Bonnie pulled back, cheeks pink, lips red. She smiled. "Shall we go to bed?"

~

They tried to stay quiet and mostly succeeded, both of them biting back gasps when they came. Afterwards, Frank kissed the side of her neck and said with a chuckle, "This would be easier if Mary had her own room."

"Yes, yes it would," Bonnie replied. Her body was pressed close against his, her skin still flushed and warm from sex.

"It would be easier still if we had our own place where she had her own room," he added. "Though it might be hard to get Chili and Loui to share the same space again."

She frowned against his chest. "Do you think he and Loui would ever learn to get along?" she asked.

"I couldn't say. I hope so. I hope we find out this year, and I hope the answer is yes."

Bonnie smiled. "I hope so, too. For both those things. And my lease is up in June, for the record." She yawned and shifted closer. "If we're serious about this."

"I am," he said. "Once all three of us are ready and once you and I have figured out what to do about the cats. We wouldn't be here without them, so I guess we have to find a way for them to live together."

"Chili reminds me of you," Bonnie said, in the confessional manner of the nearly asleep. "Wary and skittish, but worth the effort. Maybe that's why I like him." 

"You're starting to sound like Mary."

"There are worse things."

He kissed her and pulled her close. "There are."


End file.
